Looking for facts in a sea of weird, misleading, confusing and downright false information? Ask here! I am an ex-Scientologist so I will be able to provide actual facts. I will give you straight information, not church PR.

Because of various problems with Blogger, I've copied everything as of November 26, 2012 over to WordPress. The new location is Ask the Scientologist. I am not deleting this blog and will still accept comments and answer questions here too, but any new articles will appear at the WordPress location. I apologize if this causes any problems.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Scientology's Internet Trolls

Troll: A user of a newsgroup, forum or message board who posts messages with the intent of inciting an argument or flame-war.

If you spend any time browsing the Internet, you have undoubtedly run into trolls, those people who post comments on forums, message boards and newsgroups that contain inflammatory, false and/or misleading information. Usually, the intention is to trick other users into getting into endless and useless arguments.

With Church of Scientology trolls, they have the added intentions to:

Divert attention from all the negative information about the Church of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard.

Bury negative information about the church under random, off-topic comments.

Fake outrageous, crazy and embarrassing comments, allegedly from Scientology critics but actually from the Scientology trolls.

They have orders and they have an agenda. The basic job of the Scientology trolls is to suppress the truth. They work all the time to suppress Freedom of Speech. (Just imagine the poor soul who accepts that as their job.)

Scientology's trolls appear to be similar to regular trolls or to very stupid people. It is sometimes difficult to differentiate between these different types of troublemakers.

The Scientology Troll has specific characteristics:

Always states "I am not a Scientologist".

Always parrots the Church of Scientology party line.

Always attacks anyone the church wants attacked.

Always "gets very upset" when outed as a Scientologist or an OSA troll.

They persist in forwarding the church's agenda even after all their false claims have been debunked and disproven. This is because they are not allowed to move from that position.

They claim to have read any referenced web sites containing the truth about the Church of Scientology, but they remain completely ignorant of such information.

"You're a cult!" "No, you're a cult!"

The latest party line from the Church of Scientology is for their OSA trolls to call everyone and everything a "cult". The attempt, apparently, is to water the word down into meaninglessness. Right now, the trolls call all churches "cults" and, amusingly, have even been working to brand Anonymous as a "cult".

This has the hallmarks of being another "bright idea" from David Miscavige.

Destructive cults are rather few and identifying them is pretty straightforward—and the Church of Scientology does not want you looking at them with that definition in mind!

So, the big push by OSA trolls is to muddy all the discussions of Scientology crimes with this bogus and usually off-topic accusation of "you're a cult!"

"I am not a Scientologist"

This may be one of the most amusing claims of the OSA trolls. They are very, very insistent that they are not a Scientologist. If you out them as an OSA troll they get very, very upset—and loud.

Sometimes, to forward this masquerade they will even say something mildly disrespectful of the Church of Scientology (but if they mention any wrongdoing on the part of the church, it is dismissed as far in the past and well-justified).

You think "Gee, they're so insistent, maybe they aren't a Scientologist." But, you see, they hew exactly to the Church of Scientology party line. They always attack those the church wants attacked. Their only activities are to forward the Church of Scientology's agenda. Period.

There are two possibilities when someone does this consistently: Either they are an OSA troll who has specific orders, or they are very, very stupid and believe the Church of Scientology's lies. I figure I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt by calling them OSA trolls. I really hate to call someone "abysmally stupid".

Insults, not logic

You can never get an OSA troll to work through the facts logically. If you carefully document the falsity of a dozen of their claims, they will bring up a dozen more, equally false. When you carefully document those as lies, they go back to their original false claims and pretend those were never disproven. This can go on forever. They never can and never will admit that all their "facts" from the church are totally bogus.

And if you make good points and disprove their claims, they inevitably answer with ... insults! You might think you're having a rational discussion when suddenly, they will start calling you vicious, insulting names. That means you won the argument. You see, since they are required to adhere to the Church of Scientology party line, and since the party line is composed only of lies, misinformation and is totally illogical, there is no possibility they can defend their position. So, when they are totally proven wrong, what can they do? Why, throw insults and flame around to completely distract and degrade the discussion. (They seem fond of yelling "Nazi".)

The OSA trolls used to be more effective than they are today. Today, their tricks are pretty well known, and their efforts are laughable.

Scientology trolls: You lose!

For the Church of Scientology and their OSA trolls, it is a losing battle. They may temporarily divert the discussion of the church's crimes in a few forums, but the flood of facts about the Church of Scientology's crimes cannot be stopped. Their efforts are like a teaspoon against the flood. The church's trolls are the laughingstock of the Internet, easily spotted and easily handled.

The church's newest "everything is a cult" campaign will backfire, as do all of their "clever" tricks; the flood of truth will continue.

The truth about the Church of Scientology is known. And, boy, do they hate that!-

I was having an argument with a scientologist here (http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2008/06/anonymous-protests-scientology-peace-and-quiet-ensues.php) and it was quite an experience. I should have been more aggressive but I wanted to play nice. I eventually figured out it was pointless, but kept on arguing just for the hell of it. it didn't occur to me that it could be someone from OSA, and if it is, that would make a lot of sense. what do you think?

Scientologists are not allowed to visit sites like Radar. It will "enturbulate" them, at which point they are "in ethics trouble" and must pay tens of thousands of dollars for "ethics handling".

There are specific Scientologists who are assigned to troll the Internet and "handle" sites like Radar. These are from OSA. They are Sea Org. They get weekly auditing to clean them up from all the horrible things they have to endure on that job.

Unless you totally agree with Scientology, you cannot talk to a regular Scientologist -- it's just too expensive for them to do so.

What if it happens to be someone who may have some disagreements with what you post.

For example your blog is supposedly called "Ask the Scientologist"

Yet it seems when an actual Scientologist responds to your post with any dissent of opinion they are immediately labeled a "troll" and it is assumed that they must be working for "OSA".

I find this very similar to the way the Church now currently labels anyone who disagrees with Miscavige a "SP".

Another point on cults. What follows is the correct definition of cult from the Merriam-Webster:

nouna system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object : the cult of St. Olaf.• a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister : a network of Satan-worshiping cults.• a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing : a cult of personality surrounding the leaders.• [usu. as adj. ] a person or thing that is popular or fashionable, esp. among a particular section of society : a cult film.DERIVATIVEScultic |-tik| adjectivecultish adjectivecultishness nouncultism |-ˌtizəm| nouncultist |-tist| nounORIGIN early 17th cent.(originally denoting homage paid to a divinity): from French culte or Latin cultus ‘worship,’ from cult- ‘inhabited, cultivated, worshiped,’ from the verb colere.

As you can see the definition doesn't have to necessarily apply to a sect it could apply more broadly to any organization or group that has a certain mindset.

A very good example is Victor Marchetti and John Mark's book "The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence".

Actually, I covered the whole "cult" thing in another post. There's a link to that post. The whole "cult" dictionary definition thing can be vague and unsatisfactory. Thanks for your input.

As for disagreement and calling someone "OSA". On this blog, I welcome disagreements, as it can make for a good discussion. I do not "immediately label as troll" any dissent. My initial tendency is to treat the person as misinformed and worth debating. However, it usually ends up with the Scientologist being rather ugly and trollish.

There is a reason for this. Scientologists are not allowed to surf the Internet. They are not allowed to read this stuff. They are certainly not allowed to actually communicate to such "Suppressives". If some public Scientologist shows up on most discussions and reads that stuff, then communicates, oh boy, it's going to cost them tens thousands of dollars and hours of amends to get that straight with the church!

The only exception to this is OSA. They are Scientologists who are assigned to this dirty job.

The job they are assigned to do is to confuse, upset, and generally suppress discussion about Scientology. Their job is not to inform or discuss.

So, if someone is on the Internet, attempting to sell the Scientology line, it's a pretty sure thing they're OSA. Not 100%, but pretty sure.

Comments will be moderated. Have patience, I get around to it pretty quick. As a rule of thumb, I won't approve spam, off-topic, trolling or abusive stuff. The rest is usually OK. Yes, you can disagree with me.

Search Ask the Scientologist

Frequency of articles

I know a number of people want me to write more frequently and I consider that a great compliment.

I would, but I refuse to write just for the sake of writing. I want to have something to say that is worthwhile. I've written a lot and, too often, when I'm researching something I want to say, I find I've already said it, sometimes several times.

When I started this blog, there was a lot of confusion and bad information which I intended to help clear up. I think I did that. Now there are many very fine blogs and other sources of factual information and excellent opinions. Often, when I'm researching something, I find that others have already covered it quite well.